Pollination and Infection through the Lens of a Meta Analysis
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Description
Pollination is essential for crops and many other flowering species. Parasites of pollinators could influence the future of pollination and flowering plants. A meta-analysis is a useful strategy to detect patterns across different studies collecting data on a similar subject. I will present results from a meta-analysis to determine how pollination is affected by pollinators infected with parasites.The project’s data collection required keywords, finding, downloading, and reading research articles that discussed the impacts of parasites on insect pollinators. Data needed an infected insect pollinator, compared to an uninfected counterpart. Both entries must display the mean and standard error. Out of the literature papers downloaded, only 3.5 percent contained usable data. Over 1,000 different lines of data were extracted from the literature of 74 papers. The two most common insects were bees in the arthropod genera Apis and Bombus, which accounted for 23.5 percent of the study observations. The affected traits due to parasitization varied from behavioral, density, morphological, and physiological. Meta analysis determined that population density was the trait most impacted by parasitization, making up 53.5 percent of observations. Given the importance of pollinator populations for flowering plants, it is critical to measure the affected changes in pollinator population density. Our results predict that as the pollinator density is negatively affected by parasites, in turn, pollination will be affected, and therefore, important flowering plant species will be impacted. Furthermore, we found correlations that reinforce the importance of parasitism and its effects on flowering plant species.
Pollination and Infection through the Lens of a Meta Analysis
Pollination is essential for crops and many other flowering species. Parasites of pollinators could influence the future of pollination and flowering plants. A meta-analysis is a useful strategy to detect patterns across different studies collecting data on a similar subject. I will present results from a meta-analysis to determine how pollination is affected by pollinators infected with parasites.The project’s data collection required keywords, finding, downloading, and reading research articles that discussed the impacts of parasites on insect pollinators. Data needed an infected insect pollinator, compared to an uninfected counterpart. Both entries must display the mean and standard error. Out of the literature papers downloaded, only 3.5 percent contained usable data. Over 1,000 different lines of data were extracted from the literature of 74 papers. The two most common insects were bees in the arthropod genera Apis and Bombus, which accounted for 23.5 percent of the study observations. The affected traits due to parasitization varied from behavioral, density, morphological, and physiological. Meta analysis determined that population density was the trait most impacted by parasitization, making up 53.5 percent of observations. Given the importance of pollinator populations for flowering plants, it is critical to measure the affected changes in pollinator population density. Our results predict that as the pollinator density is negatively affected by parasites, in turn, pollination will be affected, and therefore, important flowering plant species will be impacted. Furthermore, we found correlations that reinforce the importance of parasitism and its effects on flowering plant species.